


Washing Dishes

by jenna_thorn



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-13
Updated: 2010-09-13
Packaged: 2017-10-11 19:07:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/115904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape and Molly, written when OOtp came out. Non-canon compliant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Washing Dishes

She'd heard the door close but didn't turn until he spoke. "Dare I ask what you are doing?"

Molly swirled the soap bubbles. "Washing dishes."

"With your hands?" Snape countered, both of them ignoring the time. Some things simply weren't discussed at two a.m.

"It's something I can do." She shrugged, carefully not looking toward the door.

"Ah, then. I'll leave you to it." He pulled a teabag from the jar with a sneer. She handed him a mug, still wet and warm from the sink. He shook droplets from his fingers. "I feel I should give the mug time to recover its strength from the trauma."

"You?" she scoffed, "being kind?"

"True, then the sun would rise in the west, you'd brew the Dark Lord's potions and scurry back to a hidden den in body-binding, mind-numbing guilt and I'd comfort the children."

She thought of good men and bad men and atonement. And she smiled at him. Surprised, he twitched one side of his mouth. It could be a smile, she thought, if it ate its vegetables and grew up. "You could, you know." She watched him tracing the path his thoughts had taken back to his words. "I know you've refined, should I say distilled, being terrifying to an art, but with all that's going on…"

"Coddling them does them no favors."

"So you boil them." She softened her retort with a pun.

"If it keeps them from being poached," he answered and she rolled her eyes. He let his smile show. "I'm very good at being hated." He waved away her interruption. "Yes, I know, and being hateful. We find our safety in different places."

She turned back to the sink and mused, "Is there safety?"

"What?"

"Is there safety in other places? Could I put Ginny on a train and let it carry her far away from here? Send the boys to …" She spun to glare at him, spattering bubbles across the floor. "Majorica? Elba? America? Antarctica? Mars?" Her eyes burned. She would not cry. Not again. Not in front of this man.

"Would you?" Her breath caught at his tone. Anyone else would have come to her for a hug, a pat, to give some comforting touch. He sat at the table, talking to his mug. "We know why I fight, Molly." His left wrist twitched. "Take your husband, your children. Run, march, fly, swim. Flee. Will they?" He looked up without hostility. "Can you?" She dropped her eyes and faced away, staring at the popping bubbles, both hands on the sink. "We may fight in this war together, but I doubt our battles are the same," he continued as he rose and placed one long fingered hand on her shoulder. "Go to bed, Molly. We don't have to travel anywhere to find peace. We just have to survive."

She left the dishes in the sink. He probably thought she couldn't hear him finish, "or not," as he dropped his mug into the water.


End file.
